Church and Rechbach House

So Lower Tarvisio derives from the Austrian “Unter Tarvis”, while Upper Tarvisio was called “Ober Tarvis”. What was there once? The four Rechbach brothers built this chapel in Lower Tarvisio, which is lovely and whose interior is stunning. Rechbach House was the residence of the customs officers, who did not build a palace like many others, but instead built two ordinary dwelling houses typical of the time. This house dates back to the sixteenth century, restored in 1775 and then passed into private hands. It is worth remembering that all the houses in the area also had a vulgo name, that is, a name linked either to the family, the trade or some other characteristic. And it was built right next to this customs house. It is a house originally enclosed by a large entrance gate. They had a room used as a family chapel. They did indeed have a chaplain. And they had an internal chapel in the house. They were not a noble family, but one in the process of ennoblement, because the families who arrived here with an important post, as customs officers or also merchants or also industrialists and so on, came to this small valley as a place of transit towards the Germanic countries, which means that they wanted to Germanise themselves slowly, not in five years or ten years, but even over 100 years, and advance step by step through the ranks of nobility they had in Austria and Germany. And once they had reached the highest rank of nobility, they packed up and went away.
In fact, this family left in 1808. They left many things to the Church. For example, one can see in the parish church, in the sacristy, the splendid large wardrobe dating from the eighteenth or nineteenth century. Then they left donations. On the left, entering the church, there is the Rechbach coat of arms. Then, as for what we know about the houses, about who lived in them, we owe everything not to Bamberg, which was the Catholic authority that ruled over us, 800 km from here, but we must refer to Maria Theresa. Maria Theresa of Austria in 1847 set up a commission, called “Representatio regia in cameralibus et politicis”, which later became known as the Acts of Rectification.
In practice she sent this commission to carry out a census of everything in the valley, from houses to fields, woods, mining activities and commercial activity. These Acts of Rectification form the basis of all the information concerning the buildings, both public and private, not only in Tarvisio, but also in Malborghetto and Fusine.

Female voice - We are in Via Dante. Starting from the church, about which we already know everything. As you walk, you can see a sequence of closely packed houses. They were all house-businesses and in these houses, there were a great many interesting activities. A maker of earthenware and graphite pots, a producer of tiles for stoves, a maker of shovels, spades and other very interesting metal objects, which people came from far away to buy, a bakery producing Kugelhopf. A tannery for making leather from the skins of forest animals, a ladies’ tailor, a communal stable, a barber’s shop and even a shoemaker’s. And then, of course, that was not all: a little further on, along what is now called Via Vittorio Veneto, there were a hatter, a milliner, a shop selling porcelain and chandeliers, a hunchback tailor, a chimney sweep — very important. A manufacturer of farm wagons, a saddler.
Particularly important was the figure of the chimney sweep in Austro-Hungarian culture. His role was similar to that of modern boiler inspectors. No house could be declared habitable unless the chimney sweep had approved it. Our chimney sweep wore a full leather suit, a leather cap. He carried brushes, a heavy ball to be sent down the chimney to scrape the sides, and other tools of that kind. He was barefoot and wore clogs, and in particular, although he went around all the villages of the Val Canale, travelling on foot and taking his time, he never entered any house. He slept in haylofts and ate cold food to avoid making a mess around him. The local inhabitants often entrusted their sons to him as apprentices, in the hope that they too would become chimney sweeps, because it was an important and respected social role.